Feature

Fire at the Woolwell Centre

‘It’s times like these that you realise how lucky you are to be surrounded with good, honest, community hearted people.’

Afi re at the Woolwell Centre was a scary time for all involved but it showed just how eff ective a community can be if they work together. Centre manager and Woolwell resident Lynn Tamsett-White said the whole experience was scary but praised staff , volunteers, local residents and councillors for their love and support. ‘Saturday July 30 started off like any normal day, walking our dog, shopping, visiting family and going to neighbours for a barbecue in the evening. All pretty good stuff on a lovely warm sunny Saturday,’ said Lynn, who took over as manager in May this year. ‘Whilst stood in the garden backing on to Pick Pie Drive at approximately 9.30pm a fi re engine with fl ashing blue lights could be seen in the distance. A few of our neighbours joked “wouldn’t it be funny if they were heading to the Woolwell Centre?” ‘Now I fi nd myself stood, hearing nothing around me, just my eyes staring like lasers watching to see where the fi re engine goes, my heart sinks, it turns up Darklake Lane, the only reason to turn up the lane is to go to the Woolwell Centre. ‘My head starts fi ring into automatic mode, starting to tick off a procedure in my head of how do I manage this - “check your phone Lynn” came straight into my thoughts as I have the CCTV for the Woolwell Centre linked to my mobile. I could see the fi re engine turning into my car park. My heart sank. ‘I said to Angie, my wife, I’ve got to go to the centre the fi re engine is outside. ‘As I was running towards the centre I could see hose reels were being taken out of the fi re engine, I went straight to the Commander in charge, and said who I was and opened up.

“As I was running towards the centre I could see hose reels were being taken out of the fi re engine ”

Centre manager Lynn Tamsett-White

Lynn was asked to turn mains gas and electric off - and with those now off, firefighters and Lynn head to the main hall entrance doors. ‘I open these up and without thinking pull open the door, a plume of black smoke billowed out and smelt awful, I was moved rather quickly out of the way and out of the building. ‘A team of firemen went through the main hall with hoses and breathing apparatus on, to find the source of the issue. After about 10 minutes - which felt like 2 hours - I was called forward to be advised “your building is on fire in the back corridor leading to the side stage of the main hall and back room”.’ Now outside and waiting, Lynn felt it was time to notify her team of what was happening. ‘I started the message off with “I can’t believe I’m writing this but I am currently stood outside our Centre and we are on fire! The fire brigade is in attendance, when I know more details I will let you know.” ‘Whilst stood there by myself in the rain, with a multitude of scenarios going through my head regarding what condition the centre be in, along with “this is not a great start to your tenure of being the new centre manager Lynn” and “you’ve been in sole charge for less than 8 weeks and the centre is on fire”, I heard my name being called. I turned around and staff members were running towards me, in fact the whole lot turned up with partners and children in tow over the coming 10 minutes. One member of my team Jo was the first to arrive and dealt with my small meltdown and anxiety.’ The job of getting the very toxic and unpleasant thick black smog and smell from the main hall and surrounding area was going to be a difficult one. ‘The fireman in charge noticed we have large extraction vents at the top of the main hall and asked if I knew how to switch them on, unfortunately I didn’t. However, Paul Blight, who lives locally, and is also a Bickleigh Parish Councillor like me, came up and sorted out how to safely put these on, with Jason also making the electrics safe, removing the radiator in question and attending to the varying sensors around the affected area. ‘Suddenly there was silence within the building, although the ringing noise just seemed to continue in my head. ‘After about an hour we were allowed in, I gave the instruction to contact the bookings planned in the diary for Sunday. We managed to send out emails to all the contact details we were given at the time of the booking for the events that were happening on Sunday.’ After this, it was past midnight and all staff and volunteers agree to meet back at the centre on Sunday morning to clean everything as best as possible, to open on Monday. Lynn said: ‘My team, who I was already proud of, all showed up on Sunday morning with face masks, cleaning products in hand and off we went and cleaned the affected areas until 5pm that day. ‘The support of my team and the community afterwards has been amazing. I couldn’t have asked for anything more, we got soot black dirty, we laughed, we cried, we worked our socks off to get the community centre open for all on the Monday and we achieved that together as a team. ‘It’s times like these that you realise how lucky you are to be surrounded with good, honest, community hearted people. ‘As a centre we were lucky - the damage could have been so much worse. First and foremost, no one was hurt and the true spirit of community was on show for all to see.’ n

The source of the fire Staff and volunteers cleaning up